The Awful Truth (1937)

Cary Grant and Irene Dunne in The Awful Truth: they even look good in pajamas

Films, for me, need to inspire. When you have watched a couple of turkeys, you start to lose faith in the cinema, so you turn to what you hope will be a sure success. Hence, we watched Charade (Stanley Donen, 1963), because it starred Cary Grant. Unfortunately, at 59, it was a rather too old Cary Grant. Supposed to be playing a suave jewel thief, he struck me as someone who would rather be tucked up in bed of an evening. He was too suntanned, too complacent, to be playing the role of a thief. And he didn’t display any real chemistry with his co-star.

So, in an attempt to remember Grant at his peak, I watched The Awful Truth (Leo McCarey, 1937), with Grant 25 years younger. The story is simplicity itself. A married couple, in the process of divorcing, decide they prefer being together and are reunited. There’s not much doubt about the likely ending: it’s pretty clear throughout the film that whatever magic you see on the screen is when Grant and his partner Irene Dunne are together, and it’s only a matter of time before they abandon all pretence of separating and get back together. From their screen presence alone, you feel this is a just ending. Entertaining though the other actors are, Dunne and Grant seem to inspire each other to a wholly different plane of acting, one in which murmurs and hesitations are as important as the scripted lines.

They don’t simply recite their lines, they rework those lines around gestures, of mumbling, of half-finished statements. Usually it is only Grant who can put meaning into a simple “mmm”. Here, they both do it! It is remarkable to watch, and truly cinematic. Often it is just the slightest gesture, or sound, both of which would probably be lost in the theatre, where everything has to be communicated on a large scale.

As for Dunne, she displays a majestic scornful wit that sends shivers down your spine. Accused of infidelity with her music teacher after a night at a hotel, the music teacher tries to explain what happened, and Dunne then has one of the great put-down lines:

-        Armand Duvalle: I am a great teacher, not a great lover.

-        Dunne: That’s right, Armand. No one could ever accuse you of being a great lover.

Apparently Leo McCarey, the director, was responsible for many of the early Laurel and Hardy films – he even introduced the comedy pair to each other. The Laurel and Hardy trick of preparing a gag slowly, so you the viewer can see the disaster looming, is the same technique used in The Awful Truth. Grant comes to see his former wife and unwittingly finds himself in a concert recital where she is singing in front of a rapt audience. We feel that Grant will not be able to control himself simply to become a member of the audience. Sure enough, within a few seconds he has fallen off his chair and disrupted the entire recital.

So astonishing and attention-grabbing are the moments when Grant and Dunne are together that it is only after the film is over that you being to notice its defects. 

One of the defects of The Awful Truth: there is a dog (Mr Smith)

Grant and Dunne play a fabulously wealthy and tasteless couple. The have servants to serve the drinks. They have investments but don’t seem to do any work. Their house is monumental and vulgar.  They have someone to choose the decor (I hope they didn't play any part in it). They are snobbish and elitist. In social situations, there is a definite code that should be followed, with condemnation reserved for those who don’t understand this wealth-based code. When Grant meets a showgirl in a fancy restaurant, the woman’s reputation is shattered when she sings a song about the wind and her dress is blown up from below. Funny it may be, but tasteless according to the arbiters (Grant and Dunne) and so to be laughed at, not with.

When introduced to a man from Oklahoma (this is before the musical), Grant has a series of snide remarks about this rural hell compared with New York. Dunne soon joins in the condemnation.

Finally, and most insultingly, Dunne, whose ferocious wit is enough to put any man in his place, gets her former husband back by dressing seductively and artfully persuading her partner to join her in bed (a consummation that, of course, happens off screen after the film is over). Would any man with the social awareness of Grant allow himself to be caught in such a way? Would any woman with such withering contempt for other men throw herself so openly at her former partner? I don’t think so. Of course, most film directors have enjoyed making Cary Grant squirm. But the awful truth is, we don’t really care. We just want the two of them on screen for as long as possible, he in a dinner suit, without a hair out of place, and she in yet another dramatic yet vulgar backless dress (a new outfit every ten minutes or so), despite the fact that they are surrounded by tasteless bourgeois opulence. All we see is the most stylish couple in the world, with their effortless dialogue propelling the film into paradise of sorts: our movie paradise, where that wit goes back and forth all day, without end.